Catch-In Focus discovery

I don't have a whole lot to do right now, so I spent some time fiddling with my K-1. I use only manual focus lenses, so this will be pertinent to people with similar equipment and preferences. I've always liked Catch-In Focus, but never felt like it was worth menu diving to turn it on and off.

Well I'm here to tell you that those menu diving days can end if you want them to. Here are the steps and operation by which you can use CIF on demand.

Now we're ready to go. Under normal use, a full press of the shutter button will expose whether the subject is in focus or not. However, if you press and hold the AF button on the back of the camera, you can simultaneously press and hold the shutter button. There will be no exposure until the subject is in focus (center point only), so crank your focus ring until you get there.

Great stuff, that's what I'm doing as well with my Takumars on my K1 II.

There's something else too with those lenses when you're set up with CIF: when you want to shoot a scene with a lot of depth of field, setting the focus ring infinity symbol opposite the chosen f stop - the hyperfocal distance setting - you will hear the "beep" telling you you're in focus somewhere beyond the hyperfocal distance. I did a 5 bracket/5 image panorama of the interior of a church yesterday with my 28mm f3.5 Tak and all was perfectly in focus. With modern lenses you can't do that so you have rely on the old "focus at 1/3", if it works, and check results before finishing. Some will focus at infinity and hope for the best.

I don't have a whole lot to do right now, so I spent some time fiddling with my K-1. I use only manual focus lenses, so this will be pertinent to people with similar equipment and preferences. I've always liked Catch-In Focus, but never felt like it was worth menu diving to turn it on and off.

I use AF/MF switch in camera body to control CIF. AF need to be enabled from body for CIF to work, so I have set it on permanently from menus and just turn the switch to MF when I don't need it. This works on all pentax models.

By release priority, I guess you meant focus priority. It's a solution for catching fast moving subjects when the zone of focus is predictable.

My original intent was to link CIF with the AF button on the rear of the camera. This way, shutter button alone releases the shutter regardless of focus lock, but the shutter + AF combo engages CIF. For this to work, the AF switch by the lens mount needs to be on all the time. If that's true, then release priority is required in order to allow shutter to go off without a focus lock.

My original intent was to link CIF with the AF button on the rear of the camera. This way, shutter button alone releases the shutter regardless of focus lock, but the shutter + AF combo engages CIF. For this to work, the AF switch by the lens mount needs to be on all the time. If that's true, then release priority is required in order to allow shutter to go off without a focus lock.

I don't know. I tried with my K1 and DFA2470, with focus priority , and CIF worked! I could never have CIF working with an AF lens that doesn't have a AF/MF switch. Now I can.